Jamie Dimon on Bitcoin: Don’t get involved

Jan 17, 2024 at 2:46 PM UTC

Edited by Brian Stone

News

Jamie Dimon on Bitcoin: Don’t get involved

Despite JPMorgan’s role in BlackRock’s SEC-approved Bitcoin ETF, its CEO, Jamie Dimon, remains resolute in his anti-crypto rhetoric and BTC skepticism.

Bitcoin (BTC) holds little utility outside of serving as a channel for hundreds of billions in illicit wealth from fraud, money laundering, tax avoidance, and sex trafficking, said JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon.

Speaking with CNBC at the 2024 World Economic Forum in Davos, Dimon commented on the spot BTC ETFs approved by Gary Gensler’s Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) on Jan. 10, noting that blockchain’s value exists in tokenization of real-world assets like real estate and not in cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin.

Blockchain is real and it’s a technology. We at JPMorgan use it. It’s going to move money, data, and it’s efficient. We’ve talked about it for 12 years now. Bitcoin on the other hand is the pet rock.
Jamie Dimon, JPMorgan CEO

Dimon, whose banking giant is an authorized participant in BlackRock’s iShares Bitcoin Trust ETF, added that he’s unclear on Larry Fink’s position concerning the nascent digital asset industry. JPMorgan’s boss did, however, share his personal view, noting that he wouldn’t advise anyone to get involved in Bitcoin.

I don’t care so please just stop talking about this sh*t. I don’t know what Larry Fink would say about Blockchain versus crypto with utility or versus crypto like Bitcoin that does nothing.
Jamie Dimon, JPMorgan CEO

Dimon’s comments in Davos echo his congressional testimony weeks before spot BTC ETFs were accepted. During the hearing, the JPMorgan CEO said he would shut down Bitcoin if he were the United States government and attributed its sole use case to criminal operations.

However, Chainalysis reports have clarified that less than 1% of crypto transactions are tied to illegal activities.

"There are cryptocurrencies that do something, that might have value. And then there's one that does nothing, I call it pet rock. The #Bitcoin, or something like that," says @JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon. "It has some use cases. Everything else is people trading among themselves." pic.twitter.com/EnUBuIEHkI
— Squawk Box (@SquawkCNBC) January 17, 2024

Meanwhile, BlackRock’s CEO Larry Fink, whose firm works with JPM for its spot BTC fund, said the asset management giant sees value in another crypto-related product underpinned by the second-largest digital asset, Ethereum (ETH).

BlackRock’s BTC ETF has traded hundreds of millions of dollars since its Jan. 11 launch, along with other Bitcoin funds from issuers like ARK 21Shares, Bitwise, and VanEck, while Grayscale’s GBTC recorded consecutive days of outflows.